Turf course sporting new green luster

By the end of horse racing at the Sonoma County Fair last year, the prized $3 million, 4-year-old turf track was no longer inspiring the customary oohs and ahs.

More like grumblings and expletives.

Thanks to rain in the the early morning of opening day and three weeks of racing — one more than usual — the grass looked, well, slightly less than vibrant as racing finally came to a close.

“It got some holes, it got some divots, it looked like someone had sent 1,000 Tiger Woods out there hitting chip shots,” Santa Rosa trainer Steve Specht said. “It got pretty raggedy.”

But fast forward a year and the grass, thanks to added nutrients, really is greener. More importantly, fair officials believe it will also be sturdier.

The first of 12 days of fair racing begins at 12:30 p.m. today and new fair racing director Richard Lewis is confident the turf track will live up to its billing.

Lewis, 55, a San Francisco native, was a trainer for three decades before becoming involved in administration at soon-to-be-bulldozed Bay Meadows Racetrack in San Mateo 10 years ago. He was the racing director at Bay Meadows the past four years.

In April, Lewis enlisted Bernie Eastridge, the turf superintendent at Bay Meadows and Hollywood Park, to help solidify Santa Rosa’s surface.

The turf track was thatched and aerated to promote root depth in hopes it will hold better.

“The night before opening day last year it rained and it made it really soft,” Lewis said. “I think the pre-track maintenance was good, but not as good as it could have been. That’s why we really started looking at it three months ago to see what could be done.”

Lewis is also hopeful something can be done to get Santa Rosa a third week of horse racing on a permanent basis.

The fair hosted three weeks of racing for the first time last year in a arrangement in which it shared revenue from the extra weekwith the Solano County Fair.

The partnership resulted in a slight increase in profits, but total revenue was $2.3 million, about $900,000 short of the fair’s target goal.

You can reach Staff Writer

Eric Branch at 521-5268 or eric.branch@pressdemocrat.com.